From the award-winning author of Island of a Thousand Mirrors comes the confession of a woman, driven by the demons of her past to commit a single and possibly unforgivable crime.

“The walls of my cell are painted an industrial white, like albumen. They must think the color is soothing. Where I come from it connotes absence, death, unrelenting loneliness.”

In the idyllic hill country of Sri Lanka, a young girl grows up with her loving family; but even in the midst of this paradise, terror lurks in the shadows. When tragedy strikes, she and her mother must seek safety by immigrating to America. There the girl must reinvent herself as an American teenager to survive, with the help of her cousin. Both love and loss fill her life, but even as she assimilates and thrives, the secrets and scars of her past follow her into adulthood. In this new country of freedom, everything she has built begins to crumble around her, and her hold on reality becomes more and more tenuous. When the past and the present collide, she sees no other choice than to commit her unforgivable final act. This is her confession.

REVIEW:

“The walls of my cell are painted an industrial white”

Devastating. Disturbing. Mind-boggling.

This twisted tale of a young girl who is wronged, turning into a woman whose shadows of the past force her to commit an unforgivable crime, won’t let you breath for a long time since you keep the book down.

What Lies Between Us is a story filled with a lot of suspense. The brutal honesty in the narrator’s voice just makes it more believable. Its one of those randomly picked books which are surprisingly engrossing.

“I was born in Sri Lanka, a green island in the midst of the endless Indian Ocean”

The narrator is a fresh character, and this entire Sri-Lankan background in the story taught me a lot about the culture in that country (which is a lot similar to ours). The author also uses small, seemingly irrelevant stories or tales in the middle of the story, which gives you subtle hints about what MIGHT happen, without revealing much. Munaweera keeps you guessing things till the very last page of the book.

I finished this book in one morning, so fair warning, don’t sit with it unless you have quite a bit of time, because I assure you, you won’t be able to put it down.

Lastly, I’ll warn you again, this book is devastating. It’s dark, so very, very dark. It is going to ruin your perception towards things, disturb your very core with its candor. Read it only if you can handle it.

Thank you Pan Macmillan for giving me the opportunity to review this wonderful book.